“Coexistence” with Monsanto: Hell No!

“Coexistence” with Monsanto: Hell No!

"If you put a label on genetically
engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it."

Norman Braksick, president of Asgrow
Seed Co., a subsidiary of Monsanto, quoted in the Kansas City Star,
March 7, 1994

"Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe
the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it
as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA's job."

Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of
corporate communications, quoted in the New York Times, October 25,
1998

After 16 years of non-stop biotech bullying
and force-feeding Genetically Engineered or Modified (GE or GM) crops
to farm animals and “Frankenfoods” to unwitting consumers, Monsanto
has a big problem, or rather several big problems. A growing number
of published scientific studies indicate that GE foods pose serious
human health threats. The American Academy of Environmental Medicine
(AAEM) recently stated that “Several animal studies indicate serious
health risks associated with GM food,” including infertility, immune
problems, accelerated aging, faulty insulin regulation, and changes
in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. The AAEM advises consumers
to avoid GM foods. Before the FDA arbitrarily decided to allow Genetically
Modified Organisms (GMOs) into food products in 1994, FDA scientists
had repeatedly warned that GM foods can set off serious, hard-to-detect
side effects, including allergies, toxins, new diseases, and nutritional
problems. They urged long-term safety studies, but were ignored. http://www.responsibletechnology.org

Federal judges are finally starting to
acknowledge what organic farmers and consumers have said all along:
uncontrollable and unpredictable GMO crops such as alfalfa and sugar
beets spread their mutant genes onto organic farms and into non-GMO
varieties and plant relatives, and should be halted.

An appeals court recently ruled that
consumers have the right to know whether the dairy products they are
purchasing are derived from cows injected with Monsanto’s (now Elanco’s)
controversial recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), linked to serious
animal health problems and increased cancer risk for humans.

Monsanto’s Roundup, the agro-toxic
companion herbicide for millions of acres of GM soybeans, corn, cotton,
alfalfa, canola, and sugar beets, is losing market share. Its overuse
has spawned a new generation of superweeds that can only be killed with
super-toxic herbicides such as 2,4, D and paraquat. Moreover, patented
“Roundup Ready” crops require massive amounts of climate destabilizing
nitrate fertilizer. Compounding Monsanto’s damage to the environment
and climate, rampant Roundup use is literally killing the soil, destroying
essential soil microorganisms, degrading the living soil’s ability
to capture and sequester CO2, and spreading deadly plant diseases. http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_21039.cfm

In just one year, Monsanto has moved
from being Forbes’ “Company of the Year” to the Worst Stock of
the Year. The Biotech Bully of St. Louis has become one of the most
hated corporations on Earth. http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.cfm

Monsanto and their agro-toxic allies
are now turning to Obama’s pro-biotech USDA for assistance. They want
the organic community to stop suing them and boycotting their products.
They want food activists and the OCA to mute our criticisms and stop
tarnishing the image of their brands, their seeds, and companies. They
want us to resign ourselves to the fact that one-third of U.S. croplands,
and one-tenth of global cultivated acreage, are already contaminated
with GMOs. That’s why Monsanto recently hired the notorious mercenary
firm, Blackwater, to spy on us. That’s why Monsanto has teamed up
with the Gates Foundation to bribe government officials and scientists
and spread GMOs throughout Africa and the developing world. That’s
why the biotech bullies and the Farm Bureau have joined hands with the
Obama Administration to preach their new doctrine of “coexistence.”

“Coexistence” or
Cooptation?

The Agriculture Department is dutifully
drafting a comprehensive “coexistence policy” that supposedly will
diffuse tensions between conventional (chemical but non-GMO), biotech,
and organic farmers. Earlier this week industry and Administration officials
met in Washington, D.C. to talk about coexistence. Even though the Organic
Consumers Association tried to get into the meeting, we were told we
weren’t welcome. The powers that be claim that the OCA doesn’t meet
their criteria of being “stakeholders.” The unifying theme in these
closed-door meetings is apparently that Monsanto and the other biotech
companies will set aside a “compensation” fund to reimburse organic
farmers whose crops or fields get contaminated. That way we’ll all
be happy. Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, Dow, and Dupont will continue planting
their hazardous crops and force-feeding animals and consumers with GMOs.
Organic farmers and companies willing to cooperate will get a little
compensation or “hush money.” But of course our response to Monsanto
and the USDA’s plan, as you might have guessed, is hell no!

There can be no such thing as “coexistence”
with a reckless and monopolistic industry that harms human health, destroys
biodiversity, damages the environment, tortures and poisons animals,
destabilizes the climate, and economically devastates the world’s
1.5 billion seed-saving small farmers. Enough talk of coexistence.
We need a new regime that empowers consumers, small farmers, and the
organic community. We need a new set of rules, based on “truth-in-labeling”
and the “precautionary principle” — consumer and farmer-friendly regulations
that are basically already in place in the European Union—so that
“we the people” can regain control over Monsanto, indentured politicians,
and the presently out-of-control technology of genetic engineering.

Truth-in-Labeling: Monsanto and the
Biotech Industry’s Greatest Fear

In practical terms coexistence between
GMOs and organics in the European Union, the largest agricultural market
in the world, is a non-issue. Why? Because there are almost no GMO crops
under cultivation, nor consumer food products on supermarket shelves,
in the EU, period. And why is this? There are almost no GMOs in Europe,
because under EU law, as demanded by consumers, all foods containing
GMOs or GMO ingredients must be labeled. Consumers have the freedom
to choose or not to consume GMOs, while farmers, food processors, and
retailers have (at least legally) the right to lace foods with GMOs,
as long as they are labeled. Of course consumers, for the most part,
do not want to consume GM Frankenfoods. European farmers and food companies,
even junk food purveyors like McDonald’s and Wal-Mart, understand
quite well the axiom expressed by the Monsanto executive at the beginning
of this article: "If you put a label on genetically engineered
food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it."

The biotech industry and Food Inc. are
acutely aware of the fact that North American consumers, like their
European counterparts, are wary and suspicious of GMO foods. Even without
a PhD, consumers understand you don’t want to be part of an involuntary
food safety experiment. You don’t want your food safety or environmental
sustainability decisions to be made by profit-at-any-cost chemical companies
like Monsanto, Dow, or Dupont—the same people who brought you toxic
pesticides, Agent Orange, PCBs, and now global warming. Industry leaders
are acutely aware of the fact that every single industry or government
poll over the last 16 years has shown that 85-95% of American consumers
want mandatory labels on GMO foods. Why? So that we can avoid buying
them. GMO foods have absolutely no benefits for consumers or the environment,
only hazards. This is why Monsanto and their friends in the Bush, Clinton,
and Obama administrations have prevented consumer GMO truth-in-labeling
laws from getting a public discussion in Congress, much less allowing
such legislation to be put up for a vote. Obama (and Hilary Clinton)
campaign operatives in 2008 claimed that Obama supported mandatory labels
for GMOs, but we haven’t heard a word from the White House on this
topic since Inauguration Day.

Although Congressman Dennis Kucinich
(Democrat, Ohio) introduces a bill in every Congress calling for mandatory
labeling and safety testing for GMOs, don’t hold your breath for Congress
to take a stand for truth-in-labeling and consumers’ right to know
what’s in their food. Especially since the 2010 Supreme Court decision
in the so-called “Citizens United” case gave big corporations and
billionaires the right to spend unlimited amounts of money (and remain
anonymous, as they do so) to buy elections, our chances of passing federal
GMO labeling laws against the wishes of Monsanto and Food Inc. are all
but non-existent.

Therefore we need to shift our focus
and go local. We’ve got to concentrate our forces where our leverage
and power lie, in the marketplace, at the retail level; pressuring retail
food stores to voluntarily label their products; while on the legislative
front we must organize a broad coalition to pass mandatory GMO (and
CAFO) labeling laws, at the city, county, and state levels.

Millions Against Monsanto:
Launching a Nationwide Truth-in-Labeling Campaign, Starting with Local
City Council Ordinances or Ballot Initiatives

Early in 2011 the Organic Consumers Association,
joined by our consumer, farmer, environmental, and labor allies, plans
to launch a nationwide campaign to stop Monsanto and the Biotech Bullies
from force-feeding unlabeled GMOs to animals and humans. Utilizing scientific
data, legal precedent, and consumer power the OCA and our local coalitions
will educate and mobilize at the grassroots level to pressure retailers
to implement “truth-in-labeling” practices; while simultaneously
organizing a critical mass to pass mandatory local and state truth-in-labeling
ordinances or ballot initiatives similar to labeling laws already in
effect for country of origin, irradiated food, allergens, and carcinogens.
If local government bodies refuse to take action, wherever possible
we will gather petition signatures and place these truth-in-labeling
initiatives directly on the ballot in 2011 or 2012. Stay tuned for details,
but please send an email to: information@organicconsumers.org

if you’re interesting in helping organize
a truth-in-labeling campaign in your local community. Millions Against
Monsanto. Power to the people!

Ronnie Cummins is the International Director of the Organic Consumers Association.

Further

Surrounded by a massive police presence, the country's top law enforcement official told a group of carefully screened students at Georgetown's Law School that, "In this great land, the government does not tell you what to think or what to say." In his speech, only announced the day before, Sessions went on to denounce uppity knee-taking football players and defend his boss' call, hours before, for them to be fired. We may need to upgrade the ole Irony Alert buzzer. It can't keep up.